Muslim anger builds over Pope's speech

Pope Benedict XVI is being urged to retract comments he made linking Islam with violence after they provoked a wave a condemnation from across the Muslim world.

The pope provoked anger after criticising Islam and its concept of jihad on Tuesday during a six-day visit to his native Germany, citing a 14th-century Christian emperor who said that Prophet Mohammed had brought the world "evil and inhuman" things.

A statement issued by the Vatican on Thursday, saying the pope had never meant to offend Islam, failed to resolve the furore.

The Pakistani national assembly, parliament's lower house, unanimously passed a resolution on Friday demanding the Pope retract his remarks "in the interest of harmony among different religions of the world".

"The derogatory remarks of the pope about the philosophy of jihad and Prophet Mohammed have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions," the resolution said.

In Qatar, prominent Muslim scholar shaikh Youssef al-Qaradawi rejected the Pope's comments and said Islam was a religion of peace and reason.

'Lack of wisdom'

In Indonesia, Din Syamsuddin, the chairman of Muhammadiyah, the country's second largest Islamic organisation, said: "The pope's statements reflect his lack of wisdom.

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WORLD CAPITALS — Pope Benedict XVI's criticism of Islam and the Islamic concept of Jihad as unreasonable and against God's nature has sparked furor in the Muslim world on Thursday, September14 , amid calls for the pontiff to retract his remarks.

"These remarks are unacceptable and demonstrate ignorance of the Muslim faith," Mohamed Kanaan, the chief judge of the Supreme Shari`ah Courts in Lebanon, told the Doha-based Al-Jazeera channel.

"The remarks only play into the hands of those seeking to tarnish the image of Islam."

In what some Vatican watchers see as a watershed speech to academics on Tuesday, September12 , Benedict had portrayed Islam as a religion which endorses violence, where faith is "spread by the sword".

Using the words, "Jihad" and "Holy War" in lecture at the University of Regensburg, he quoted criticism of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) by a 14 th Century Byzantine Christian emperor.

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached," Benedict quoted Manuel II.

In Morocco, the daily Aujourd'hui said the pope's remarks have upset a million Muslims around the globe.

"The global outcry over the calamitous cartoons (of Prophet Muhammad) has only just died down and now the pontiff, in all his holiness, is launching an attack against Islam," it said.

Last September, a series of lampooning cartoons of Prophet Muhammad printed by a Danish daily and republished by European newspapers sparked a global outcry.

The daily urged the pope, as political leader of the Roman Catholic Church, to "quickly prove that his ambition is not to spark a war of religions."

Hatred

Chief judge Kanaan asked Pope Benedict to retract his insulting remarks.

"He must apologize," he told the Doha-based broadcaster.

The remarks have also drawn fire from Turkey's highest religious authority, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"The remarks reflect the hatred in his heart. It is a statement full of enmity and grudge," Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Turkey's religious affairs directorate, told the NTV news channel.

"It is a prejudiced and biased approach," he added.

Bardakoglu said the pope was not welcome in Turkey unless retracting his remarks.

"I do not think any good will come from the visit to the Muslim world of a person who has such ideas about Islam's prophet. He should first of all replace the grudge in his heart with moral values and respect for the other."

Pope Benedict is expected in Turkey on November 28 - 30on an invitation from the Turkish government and the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul.

In2004 , the pontiff caused a stir by opposing Turkey's accession into the European Union.

He said Turkey should seek its future in an association of Islamic nations, not with the EU, which has Christian roots.

Bloody History

Ejaz Ahmed, a member of an Italian governmental consultative committee on Islam, also criticized the Vatican pope, reported Italy's ANSA news agency.

"In his speech the pope overlooks the fact that Islam was the cradle of science and that Muslims were the first to translate Greek philosophers before they became part of European history," he said.

"The Muslim world is currently undergoing a deep crisis and any attack from the West can aggravate this crisis," he said.

Aiman Mazyek, the president of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, said the history of the Roman Catholic Church had violent chapters.

"After the bloodstained conversions in South America, the crusades in the Muslim world, the coercion of the Church by Hitler's regime, and even the coining of the phrase 'holy war' by Pope Urban II, I do not think the Church should point a finger at extremist activities in other religions," he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Haken al-Mutairi, Secretary General of Kuwait's Umma party asked Pope Benedict to immediately apologize "to the Muslim world for his calumnies against the Prophet Muhammed and Islam".

Mutairi hit out at the pope's "unaccustomed and unprecedented" remarks, and linked the Catholic Church leader's comments to "new Western wars currently under way in the Muslim world in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon".

The pope's statements amounted to "the pursuit of crusades", he told AFP.

"I call on all Arab and Islamic states to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican and expel those from the Vatican until the pope says he is sorry for the wrong done to the Prophet and to Islam, which preaches peace, tolerance, justice and equality."

Mutairi urged Christian and Muslim religious leaders to "spread the values of tolerance and clemency preached by the prophets Jesus and Muhammed".

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-09/14/04.shtml

WORLD CAPITALS – A growing chorus of Muslim leaders worldwide were united Friday, September15 , in insisting on a clear-cut apology from Pope Benedict over his comments that showed how little he understands Islam and could hurt religious harmony.

We demand that he apologizes personally, and not through (Vatican) sources, to all Muslims for such a wrong interpretation," said Lebanese Shiite scholar Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Reuters reported.

"While we strongly condemn and reject this talk ... we call for Muslim-Christian relations based on an in-depth scientific understanding of the mutual points of view, leaving aside sensational words," said Fadlallah.

Sheikh Hamza Mansour, who heads the Shura Council of the Islamic Action Front, Jordan's largest opposition party, said only a personal apology could rectify the "deep insult made by the provocative comments" to over 1 billion Muslims.

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt called on Islamic countries to threaten to break off relations with the Vatican unless the Pontiff withdrew his remarks and apologize.

"The general guide (Mohammad Mahdi Akef) expressed his surprise that such comments should come from someone who sits at the summit of the Catholic Church and who has an influence over public opinion in the West," said a statement on the Muslim Brotherhood's official Web site, http://www.ikhwanonline.com.

In his speech at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday, Benedict quoted criticism of Islam and Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) by14 th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who wrote that everything Muhammad brought was evil and inhuman, "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Benedict repeatedly quoted Manuel's argument that spreading the faith through violence is unreasonable, adding: "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."

The pope's official spokesman later issued a response to the outcry, saying that Benedict respected Islam but rejected violence motivated by religion.

"It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to do an in-depth study of jihad and Muslim thinking in this field and still less so to hurt the feelings of Muslim believers," said Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican's press department.

Ignorance

Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the head of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), said the pope's words reflected ignorance of the basic tenets of Islam.

"The pope spoke about Islam without reading first its scriptures, the Noble Qur'an, and Prophet Muhammad's hadiths, but sufficed to cite a conversation between a Byzantine emperor and a Persian Muslim intellectual," said in a statement, a copy of which was sent to IslamOnline.net.

"The pope forgot that Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) came with a message that struck the right balance between this life and the Hereafter, between individual and society and between rights and duties," he added.

"Everything that Prophet Muhammad brought was good and by far surpassed the things brought by Christianity and Judaism," he continued.

Sheikh Qaradawi said Jihad in Islam is for self-defense and not to impose the Muslim faith on someone and the Noble Qur'an says: "There is no compulsion in religion."

"To say hat Prophet Muhammad brought evil and inhuman things like spreading faith by the sword is either a calumny or pure ignorance, in effect."

And the prominent scholar wondered: "Does the pope want to close the door on dialogue and new crusades to be readied?"

"We hoped that the pope would call for a constructive dialogue between all religions and civilizations to lay to rest clashes and feuds," he said.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, the second largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, echoed Qaradawi's statements.

"The Pope's statements reflect his lack of wisdom. It is obvious from the statements that the Pope doesn't have a correct understanding of Islam," Syamsuddin told Reuters.

The Pakistani parliament Friday also unanimously called on the pontiff to take back his words.

"This House demands that the pope should retract his remarks in the interest of harmony between religions," said the resolution passed by the National Assembly of the overwhelmingly Muslim country.

Crusade Language

Sheikh Qaradawi wondered: "Does the pope want to close the door on dialogue and new crusades to be readied?"

The comments also stirred anger in India with the head of the National Commission for Minorities saying the Pope sounded like a medieval crusader.

"The language used by the pope sounds like that of his12 th century counterpart who ordered the crusades," said Hamid Ansari, chairman of the National Commission for Minorities.

A member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board also slammed the pope's words, saying they were "nothing but blasphemy," and called on Muslims to "exercise restraint and not lose their cool."

In Turkey, the Anatolian state news agency quoted Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, as describing the Pope's words as "extremely regrettable".

"I do not see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate," NTV's website quoted Bardakoglu as saying.

Bardakoglu, whose directorate controls all imams in Turkey and sends imams to Turkish communities abroad, recalled atrocities committed by Roman Catholic Crusaders during the Middle Ages in the name of their faith against Orthodox Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-09/15/01.shtml

Turkey's ruling Islamic-rooted party joined a wave of criticism of Pope Benedict XVI today, saying he would go down in history in the same league as leaders like Hitler and Mussolini for remarks he made on Islam.

The comments by Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party, came a day after Turkey's top cleric asked Benedict to take back recent remarks, escalating tensions before the pontiff's November visit.

The Pope made his remarks on Islam in a speech in which he quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the Pope said.

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,"' he quoted the emperor as saying.

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